Homelessness in San Francisco

The San Francisco Bay Area consists of nine counties in northern California. San Francisco is also believed to be among the most expensive places because the four most expensive counties out of ten are found in the United States. The economic state of San Francisco has grown widely and hence has created many job opportunities but the government has issued limitations to the people on building new houses and this has led to the shortage of houses in the state. This housing shortage has caused the house rents to rise to an extreme and thus making it hard for the people of California to afford the housing costs. The high costing houses and the restrictions of building new houses have therefore led to homelessness in California, which has become a major issue that the government is trying to deal with. The study shows that from 2015 to 2017, homelessness has risen by 15% in California. Research shows that the number of people living with poverty from 2006 to 2010 has risen from 573,333 to 668, 876. That is from 8.6% to 9.7%.

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Claim1 stakeholder one says that there are many components that are causing homelessness in the San Francisco Bay Area. These factors include economic dislocation, failure of housing policy, mass incarceration, decreased social safety nets, individual causes, structural racism, and family instability. Some of the individual causes of homeless are physical wellness and the mental of a person. Stakeholder 1 says according to a report that was produced by the city of San Francisco in 2105 supports the causes of homelessness in percentages. For example, 25% of homeless are jobless, that 13% have been evicted from their homes, 11% is due to divorce and separation cases, 18% is because of those who abuse alcohol and drugs, and the other 25% are asked to exclude themselves from their families.

Stakeholder 1 claim was supported by the stakeholder 2 of claim 1 by saying that great depression has contributed to homelessness in San Francisco. Stakeholder 1 says that a report shows that in the 20th century around 1930, there was a great depression that caused a disastrous plague of homelessness, poverty, and hunger in the cities such San Francisco that depended on industries. Around two million individuals moved to the United States mostly to the west coast to search for houses. Around the 1980s in San Francisco, the figures of the persons without homes increased greatly, that increased population forced the welfare association to cut their funding and the wages were stagnated so as to exclude the social welfare net for underserved ethnicity of the people who were not originally from San Francisco.

Claim 3 stakeholder 1 gave them assumptions saying that the housing crisis was also a major cause of problems in San Francisco. The stakeholder argues that San Francisco and the neighboring Bay Area introduced stern zoning orders. According to some of the orders given by San Francisco, one rule stated that it did not allow tall building in the city which were over forty stories. That can be clearly seen with no need for evidence because no house is more than stories in San Francisco. Based on the population growth of the area, Bay Area issued building license to the half of the integer of the houses that were needed. The ones who could access the houses were the only one who could afford the up to minute housing sections. This caused the ethnic groups to go to the neighborhood to search for housing facilities this led to some people losing their homes completely and this led to poor health results for the populations that were marginalized.

Claim 4 stakeholder 1 persuaded the people that due to the high cost of rents and the new policies, they were some of the major causes of homeless people in San Francisco. Renovation of houses in San Francisco has raised concern to the people of San Francisco because the cost of housing increased after gentrification. A study that was produced by the Urban displacement project stated that the rising levels of inequality in San Francisco were being contributed by increasing levels of separation between the poor and the rich. The continuing renovations that are going on in San Francisco are escalating structural divisions. Due to the development of new industries and high-speed economic growth, it has led to increased job opportunities and people from different ethnic groups with different cultures have migrated to San Francisco to search for the new jobs. The people of San Francisco had a little pride due to their positionality in the state and thus they did not allow the ethnic groups to live among them. This led the groups to start living in the streets and they later assimilated to the nature of sleeping in the streets and thus they became homeless.

Claim 5 stakeholder 2 argues that in order to help to curb homeliness in San Francisco, the government should create job opportunities and also increase salary wages for the citizens of San Francisco. Claim 6 stakeholder 2 supported this motion by saying if the salary wages were increased, the workers who cannot afford the housing facility will now be able for the housing facilities. Claim 7 stakeholder 2 made assumptions that the increase of foreigners who were searching for jobs was also contributing to an increase in homelessness in San Francisco. The claims stated that they should be excluded from San Francisco so that the welfare money that was being distributed would benefit the people of SF only. Stakeholder 2 believed that if the foreigners were chased away, it would decrease the population of the people and hence reducing the number of homeless people. Claim 8 stakeholder 2 persuaded the government of San Francisco to issue more housing policies which would allow a building to have more than forty stories. This would help to increase the number of houses and hence decreasing homelessness. He claimed that the government reduces the taxes that were being imposed on the people of San Francisco so that the landlords would decrease the house rents so as to make them affordable for everybody living in the streets. The similarities between the two stakeholders are that they are both discussing homelessness in San Francisco. Their difference is that stakeholder 1 explains the causes of homelessness while stakeholder 2 is addressing how they can help reduce homelessness in San Francisco. The common argument is how homelessness is bringing a bad picture of SF to the world and why is the case still increasing. The important factor to understand here is how the stakeholder is being affected by homelessness and how it is affecting SF as a whole state. The question that is left unanswered is whether the government will listen to the grievances that were presented by the stakeholders and what measures will they take to reduce homelessness in San Francisco

Bibliography

Marcus, Justine, and Miriam Zuk. "Displacement in San Mateo County, California: Consequences for Housing, Neighborhoods, Quality of Life, and Health." (2017).

Varma, Anita. "When Empathy Is Not Enough: The Possibilities for Solidarity in the San Francisco Homeless Project." Journalism Practice 13, no. 1 (2019): 105-121.

Escobar, Maria. "Gentrification in San Francisco: No One Right Answer." (2017).

Caldararo, Niccolo. "The Housing Crisis and Homelessness: A San Francisco Ethnography." URBANITIES-JOURNAL OF URBAN ETHNOGRAPHY 7, no. 1 (2017): 3-21.